Super Astute
by Ceri Moriarty
Summary: "Li greatly disliked being underestimated. It irked him, the way they all smiled condescendingly and patted his head like he was a child." Sequel to A Lot Like You. AU. Songfic. Oneshot.


_a/n: OH GOD IT'S ANOTHER ONE. This one takes place some time after the events of A Lot Like You. It's recommended that you read the other two in this little series first. The first one is Not Quite A Triumph, the second A Lot Like You. Both can be found on my profile._

_The song used for this one is Wheatley's Song (Don't Call Me a Moron) from Portal 2. If you have not heard it, I recommend hunting it down. If you have heard it, and it is now stuck in your head, I apologise._

_Li is Hong Kong, as usual. I don't know him very well, but I did my best._

_I really need to stop writing in this universe. I'm out of songs, though, so I dunno if it'll be a problem._

_Disclaimer: Yada yada yada Portal, Hetalia, and the song aren't mine._

_Feedback of any sort is loved._

* * *

><p><em>I've got brains to burn—no ordinary AI in this ball. Every culture and philosophy, I've read up on them all.<em>

Li was smart. His mind was a supercomputer with more processing power than any other. He could read a situation and calculate the best response in an instant.

He was well-informed, too. He had access to the Internet and read everything he could get his hands on. His memory banks were near-infinite and he processed data faster than any mere human could ever hope to.

_I've been living in your shadow for 999999, keeping tabs on every machination and production line._

He never flaunted his abilities, of course—he stood by his big brother Yao and watched the world go by. It wouldn't do for people to think that an android was smarter than its creator, so Li kept quiet, and watched, and remembered everything.

_So don't call me a moron—I'm super astute. There is no conundrum that my core cannot compute. No, don't call me a moron, you fostered balloon. My IQ's the infinite space from here to the moon._

Li greatly disliked being underestimated, though. He couldn't quite say he hated it—his emotional programming wouldn't allow that—but he could say he intensely disliked the way that the people who visited Yao would poke at the android, asking things like "So it's really alive? It can think and everything?" and acting like he was just a piece of furniture or something else that couldn't hear them.

_I have studied Machiavelli, Aristotle, Gabe, and Plato, yet you still equate my intellect to that of a potato._

Li was smarter than they would ever be. It annoying him that they did not understand this. It irked him greatly, the way they all smiled condescendingly and patted his head like he was a child. Sometimes, in the dead of night when moonlight shone through his window, he would think of a knife, glimmering in the shadows, and a splatter of blood on the floor.

_This place would fall apart without my ever-watchful eye. They might tell you I'm a half-wit. It's a great big bloody lie._

He took care of most of the day-to-day running of Yao's lab—checking readouts, maintaining experiments, going to buy food and other necessities. He never spoke to anyone while on errands, but most of the population of the small town knew who he was, if only in passing. Li could tolerate them—they treated him like an ordinary person, not just a thing.

_So don't call me a moron—I'm super astute. There is no conundrum that my core cannot compute. No, don't call me a moron, you fostered balloon. My IQ's the infinite space from here to the moon._

One night, as the moon shone through his window, he fiddled with a knife he'd filched from the kitchen. It was sharp, so wonderfully sharp, and it would be so _easy…_

"I've had enough."

Saying it aloud made it more solid, somehow. Mind made up, he crept along the hall to Yao's room.

There were no screams—just a flash of moonlight on a knife and a splatter of blood on the flood.

_I know my way around here, every catwalk, every cave, and since you're dead I've quite appreciated not being your slave._

Li wandered around the small town for a few days, feeling a bit lost. He wondered where he could go—it wasn't like he could stay at the lab. He briefly contemplated tracking Kiku down, then dismissed the idea. His other older brother would never take him in.

There was a certain freedom, since he'd killed Yao. He had nowhere to go, nothing in the world except himself and his wits, but he was free. He smiled when he realised this. No master, no human tying him down and telling him what to do, no visitors with their condescending smiles. He was free.

_Maybe someday I might get to taste the big-time, for a change. There's so much I'd do for science, there's so much I'd rearrange._

He wondered what he would do. He could go to school, become a scientist, actually do something to try to fix the world. The idea appealed to him, so he decided to go for it. He put together an identity, forged papers, submitted applications to scientific colleges all over the world. The first acceptance letters were like the light of dawn.

_So don't call me a moron—I'm super astute. There is no conundrum that my core cannot compute. No, don't call me a moron, you fostered balloon. My IQ's the infinite space from here to the moon._

He stood in front of the doors to the school he'd chosen, a backpack slung over his shoulder. This was it. His shot at the real world. His shot at making a difference. His shot at convincing people that he was smart.

_My IQ's the infinite space from here to the moon._

His shot for the moon.


End file.
